


I Carry Your Heart (In Mine)

by griners



Category: Football RPF, gerlonso - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 13:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griners/pseuds/griners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart. (E.E. Cummings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Carry Your Heart (In Mine)

Steven thinks, wonders ( _why why why_ ) because he’s not (never has been) brave enough to ask (him).

Xabi is controlled in every aspect you could ever think of, and he’s barely been there for a month, but he knows (everyone, everything, him). He’s talking about Steven’s injury to a reporter and he’s all straight faces and _he’s recovering quickly, and that’s good for the club_ , and everyone’s watching because it’s going to be their turn soon but Steven shakes his head, walks out the back door, sees (knows) Xabi turning his head before the door slams behind him.

.

 His hands shake with the helplessness he feels (and it’s not like he understands, but he does). Xabi is quiet smiles and learning eyes and the sun beating down on his bare back and water thrumming through his skin, and Steven looks and looks until he’s tired of looking and still looks some more (he tries to understand through his eyes- like something invisible could ever materialize).

He tries to write it down, one day, when Xabi glances at him like he’s too bright to look at and he notices it deep inside, but the surface doesn’t stir. He writes, _Xabi is_ , and doesn’t write anything else because if he can’t explain it in his head, he can’t write it down either.

He remembers reading somewhere, along the line, that if you wanted to make a decision you were stuck on, you should set your alarm to 2 am and go for what your subconscious tells you while your consciousness is still asleep.

Steven wakes up to a loud shrill of his alarm, grumbles, grabs his pen and writes, _Xabi is bliss_ , goes back to sleep.

In the morning, he adds, _(blissful pain)_ , and his mind doesn’t feel as heavy anymore.

.

_(There is no cold, only a lack of warmth.)_

And Steven thinks, he’s felt this before. Steven thinks, the human being is designed to love, designed for warmth, designed to feel. So maybe we don’t hate, maybe we aren’t cold, maybe we aren’t empty.

Maybe it all comes down to a lack of something, that missed smile and that last minute of the warmth of the sun and the cry for help we were too weak (not strong enough) to get out.

Maybe he’s not lost or cold or nervous around Xabi Alonso. Maybe he’s just too much, so much that it’s poisoned and twisted and killed him inside, and maybe it’s also a lack of vocabulary, because that’s what he calls love.

.

He says his name differently. And this realization makes a shrill run down his spine, and he sits and listens and- _Steven Steven Steven Steven Steven-_ his mind repeats it until he finds the difference but- Steven.

“Steven,” he does it again, but now he’s talking to him, and half the table is staring and Carra shakes his shoulder a bit. “Are you ok?” and there’s no accent, no forced out words, pure genuine concern, and Steven wants to say, _no_. He wants to say, _please, stop_.

He says “Yeah, fine. Got distracted, s’all,” and Xabi swallows, looks him up and down twice before nodding the tinniest of nods and Steven feels like he’s falling because everything is different now, and his palms are sweating and his mind is whirling and- _Steven._

(A lack of routine.)

.

His life is made of circles (wake up, practice, game, sleep, wake up, practice, game, Xabi, sleep, wake up- there’s a difference there (he realizes too late)). It shouldn’t surprise him that the reason why it starts is the reason it ends, the reason it lays in a forgotten (lack of memory) pile of past events far too painful for him to go back to.

It starts because, Xabi touches him like he’s breakable. Steven slams him back against the wall and his body is hard on him and his kisses are frantic and bruising like he’s trying to make a point, and Xabi isn’t careful anymore and maybe that’s what he was going for all along. He fists his hand in his hair and pulls and Xabi’s whimper is the only melody that surpasses his heart pounding in his ears and then Xabi’s kissing him like he means it, like he finally understands, and Steven wishes he really did.

.

_I didn’t believe in miracles_

_Until you kissed down my back_

_And whispered my name_

_Said_

_I love you_

_And my response_

_Was silence_

_But in that silence_

_I answered_

_I believe you_

_(Because you were a miracle)_

_._

“You need to go home.”

Xabi nods, slowly, measures his words as he speaks. “I know.”

“Then go, Xabi.”

Xabi turns in the sheets, focuses on the deep blue (pure, pure blue), asks, “Who said this isn’t home?”

Steven’s heart sinks in his chest ( _red, Steven, your heart is red, not mine- red_ ), and he presses his lips to his so he can pretend, for a moment longer, that he’d never call it home.

( _Because a house, oh darling, a house is not a home. Home is where you are._ )

.

He was fifteen, once. The lines and words are blurred, but he remembers, he had an assignment.

_What is your most loved possession?_

The tip of the pen rests against the paper. The paper stares back, and he frowns, taps the pen against the white, thinks the ball he has is a dirtier kind of white, dirtier because it’s been through fields and mud and fresh clean grass, and he thinks, maybe, yes, maybe that’s what he loves most. It’s his.

But then again, it isn’t- he doesn’t have anything. He has football (but he didn’t create it). He has a ball (but he didn’t buy it). He has a family (but they can’t be his forever). He has everything (but he has nothing).

He writes, _define possession._

His teacher gives him an A. Steven doesn’t have that either.

.

They’re close. Knees touching, heads resting on a single pillow, words inexistent. Until-

“It doesn’t make sense,” there’s no context, no purpose, but he thinks that’s exactly why Xabi will understand. “I- I’m-“

“I know,” Xabi says, and he pushes closer to him, keeps his eyes closed as the sun creeps into the room. Steven’s waiting, and Xabi smiles, whispers, “me too,” and feels Steven’s warm breath before he’s kissing him again.

.

“Sometimes it’s not about us, Xabi. I have a family, you have a family, we have a club to protect. Paychecks to earn, reputation to keep- it can’t always be about _us_.”

Mechanical, mechanical, (such) mechanical (words).

“Tell me you want to end it. I’ll stop.” Xabi speaks quietly, and Steven shifts, curls his hands into fists. The nonchalance and the calmness and the cleanness have worn off (since the beginning, he thinks) and he knows he can’t blame someone who isn’t guilty of a crime, but. But he wants to blame Xabi for turning him into this (mess), he wants to blame him (thank him) for everything. He wants to raise his voice and yell and pull his hair and burn his eyes closed and escape from everything all at once, and- and. He’s silent.

Xabi smiles.

( _Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud_

_and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows_

_higher than soul can hope or mind can hide._ )

. _._

_I told you once_

_I didn’t believe_

_In God_

_And I told you again_

_Last night_

_When you were_

_Sleeping, quietly_

_But I wondered_

_If there is no such thing_

_As a God_

_Then how are you_

_In my arms_

_._

It ends. Xabi says, “I’m leaving”, and Steven asks, “When?”, hard and straightforward and Xabi places a hand on his arm as if he’s saying, _it’s alright_.

Xabi touches him like he’s breakable.

Steven kisses him, hand on his nape and another on his hair, and then Xabi boards the plane.

It ends, but for the exact same reason why it started.

And Steven wonders if it was ever really worth it.

.

_Last night_

_You said_

_It’s dark_

_But it wasn’t_

_Not when you lit up_

_The whole room_

_And not when_

_Your breath_

_Was what kept me_

_Alive_

_Because the only_

_Dark place_

_In the room_

_Was my heart_

_Dark and aged from_

_Loving you_


End file.
